---
title: "Resource-rational analysis"
type: "entity"
entity_kind: "concept"
status: "hub"
canonical_name: "resource-rational analysis"
aliases: ["resource-rational analysis (Lieder & Griffiths)","resource rationality"]
first_seen: "2026-07-12T00:00:00.000Z"
writer_model: "claude-opus-4-8"
connects_to: ["bounded optimality","rational analysis (Anderson)","Marr's levels of analysis","expected-utility maximization","cognitive biases as resource-rational"]
---


A cognitive-science paradigm advanced by [[entity-falk-lieder|Falk Lieder]] and
[[entity-thomas-griffiths|Thomas L. Griffiths]] (target article, *Behavioral
and Brain Sciences* 43, e1, 2020) that explains human cognition as the optimal
use of *limited* computational resources. It extends Anderson's rational
analysis ([[claim-rational-analysis-anderson-optimal-solution-marr-level]]) from
predicting behaviour off the environment's structure to predicting cognitive
*mechanisms* from internal resources plus the environment, pushing the program
toward [[entity-david-marr|Marr]]'s algorithmic level. Formally it scores a
heuristic by expected utility minus an explicit opportunity-cost term on the
compute it consumes, and derives the algorithm that best trades resource cost
against approximation accuracy. Its "bounded" half descends from Horvitz and
Russell's [[entity-bounded-optimality|bounded optimality]], not from Werbos's
approximate dynamic programming.

## References
- [[claim-resource-rational-analysis-extends-andersons-rational-analysis]] — self-described extension of Anderson, toward Marr's algorithmic level
- [[claim-resource-rational-analysis-descends-from-bounded-optimality-not-werbos-adp]] — its actual AI antecedent is bounded optimality, not Werbos's ADP
- [[claim-resource-rational-analysis-formalizes-utility-minus-compute-cost]] — the utility-minus-cost formalism (Eq 3/4)
- [[observation-resource-rational-analysis-confirms-anderson-leg-not-werbos-leg]] — confirms the Anderson leg, not the Werbos leg, of the optimization-as-theory-of-mind bridge
- Bridge context: [[claim-optimization-as-theory-of-mind-two-lineages]]